Religion, Crime, and Criminal Justice

Religion, Crime, and Criminal Justice Byron R. Johnson and Curtis S. Schroeder

Subject:

Online Publication Date:

Criminology and Criminal Justice, Communities and Crime DOI:

Jul 2014 Oxford University Press

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935383.013.005

In This Article

? Introduction ? I. Religion and Criminal Behavior ? II. Religious Interventions in Reducing Crime ? III. How Does Religion Matter for Crime Reduction?

o

o A. Religion Is a Protective Factor o B. Religion Promotes Prosocial Behavior ? IV. Why Religion Matters for Crime and Criminal Justice ? Conclusion ? References ? Notes

Abstract and Keywords

Religion and crime are independent subjects that continue to receive significant attention in most societies. However, we do not have an extensive or well-developed research literature examining the direct and indirect ways in which these two topics relate to each other. This curious oversight is unfortunate, because upon close examination of the extant literature, we find that the relationship between religion and crime is quite robust, consistently inverse, and carries with it relevant implications for theory and practice. Additionally, the relationship between religion and crime offers important insights for sacred-secular approaches to crime prevention strategies and policy formation that ultimately improves the overall effectiveness of the criminal justice system.

Keywords: religion, religiosity, faith-based, crime, delinquency, prevention, policy formation

Introduction

To better understand the past, present, and future role of religion in addressing matters related to crime, delinquency, offender treatment, rehabilitation programs, and even the transition of prisoners back to society, this essay examines the relevant research literature in order to assess the possible benefit or harm that religious influences may bring to bear on criminal justice. In addition, we summarize the current state of our knowledge regarding the relationship between religion and crime and also discuss how religion, faith-based groups, and religious institutions may play a more central and salutary role in improving the effectiveness of the criminal justice system.

I. Religion and Criminal Behavior

Contemporary research on the religion-crime relationship can be traced to Hirschi and Starks's classic article titled "Hellfire and Delinquency," published in 1969. Hirschi and Stark surprised many when they failed to find a significant inverse relationship between levels of religious commitment among youth and measures of delinquency. Subsequent replications both confirmed (Burkett and White 1974) and refuted (Albrecht et al. 1977; Higgins and Albrecht 1977; Jensen and Erickson 1979) Hirschi and Stark's original finding. Stark would later suggest that these contradictory findings were the result of the moral makeup of the community being studied. Stark, Kent, and Doyle (1982) found that areas with high church membership and attendance rates represented "moral communities," while areas with low church membership typified "secularized communities." Stark's moral communities hypothesis, therefore, predicted an inverse relationship between religiosity and delinquency in moral communities as well as the expectation that there would be little or no effect of religiosity on individuals in secularized communities. This important theoretical perspective provided a framework for understanding why some studies of delinquency had yielded an inverse relationship between religious commitment measures and delinquency and others did not (Stark 1996; Stark, Kent, and Doyle 1982).

Empirical evidence suggests that the effects of religiosity remain significant even in communities typified by decay, poverty, disadvantage, and disorganization (Freeman 1986; Jang and Johnson 2001; Johnson et al. 2000a,b). For example, Johnson and colleagues (2000b) found that individual religiosity helped at-risk youths, such as those living in poor inner-city areas (e.g., Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia), to escape from drug use and other illegal activities. Further, results from a series of multilevel analyses indicate that church attendance (the frequency of attending religious services) has significant inverse effects on illegal activities, drug use, and drug selling among disadvantaged youths (Johnson et al. 2000b).

There is also increasing evidence that religious involvement may lower the risks of a broad range of delinquent behaviors, including both minor and serious forms of criminal behavior (Evans et al. 1996). An increasing number of important delinquency studies as well as several systematic reviews have helped to clarify the confusion surrounding religion-crime literature. In a systematic review of 40 studies that focus on the relationship between religion and delinquency, Johnson et al. (2000) found that most of these studies reported an inverse relationship between measures of religiosity and delinquency. Several studies found no relationship or were inconclusive, and only one found a positive link between greater religiosity and increasing delinquency. Among those studies with the most rigorous research design, the likelihood that increasing religiosity would be linked with decreases in delinquency was strongest. Conversely, those studies reporting inconclusive results tended to be less methodologically rigorous. In a second meta-analysis, Baier and Wright (2001) reviewed 60 studies within the religiosity-delinquency literature and reached much the same conclusion as the previous study by Johnson et al. (2000). Baier and Wright found that studies using larger and more representative datasets were more likely to find significant inverse effects (i.e., increasing religiosity and decreasing delinquency) than studies that utilized smaller, regional, or convenient samples. In a third systematic review, Johnson (2002) looked at studies examining religion and multiple outcome areas, including several that are relevant for our current discussion (i.e., alcohol abuse, drug use/abuse, and crime/delinquency). Among the 97 alcohol studies reviewed,

only 2 found religiosity to be associated with deleterious outcomes. Another 10 studies reported inconclusive findings, while 85 found an inverse relationship. This indicates that increasing religiosity is associated with a lowered likelihood of alcohol abuse. Johnson also found a similar pattern among 54 studies examining drug use or abuse. Of the 54 studies, 50 found that increasing religiosity was related to decreasing drug use or abuse, while only one study found a positive relationship. Finally, Johnson reviewed another 46 studies within the crime and delinquency literature that examined the influence of religion, and the same trend was found-- increasing religiosity tends to be linked with decreasing criminal or delinquent behavior (37 studies), while increasing religiosity is positively related to delinquency in only one study.

In sum, these previous reviews of the relevant research literature document consistent evidence that increasing religious commitment or involvement helps protect youth from delinquent behavior and deviant activities. However, it is also important to note that the bulk of the religioncrime literature has developed most notably within the last decade or so. Thus it is necessary to update these reviews to determine whether they are consistent with the more recent research literature on religion and crime.

To follow, we summarize the results of the most recent and comprehensive review of the religion-crime literature that covers studies published between 1944 and 2010. In this systematic review, Johnson (2011) examined the type of study (e.g., cross-sectional, prospective cohort, retrospective, clinical trial, experimental, case-control, descriptive, case report, or qualitative); the sampling method (e.g., random, probability, systematic sampling, convenience/purposive sample); the number of subjects in the sample population (e.g., children, adolescents, high school students, college students, community-dwelling adults, elderly, church members, religious or clergy, gender, and race); location, religious variables included in the analysis (e.g., religious attendance, scripture study, subjective religiosity, religious commitment, intrinsic religiosity, extrinsic religiosity, etc.); controls, and findings (e.g., no association, mixed evidence, beneficial association with outcome, or harmful association with outcome).

In total, 109 studies were reviewed, and the results of this current review confirm that the vast majority of the studies report a beneficial relationship between measures of religion or religious commitment and various crime and delinquency measures or outcomes. Approximately 89 percent of the studies (97/109) find an inverse or beneficial relationship between religion and some measure of crime or delinquency (i.e., increasing religiosity is associated with lower crime/delinquency). Only 11 studies found no association or reported mixed findings, and only one study from this exhaustive literature review found that religion was associated with a harmful outcome (Johnson 2011).

Researchers over the last several decades have contributed to this emerging religiosity-crime literature; yet until recently there has remained a lack of consensus about the nature of this relationship. Stated differently, in studies utilizing vastly different methods, samples, and research designs, increasing religiosity (religiousness, religious activities, or participation) is consistently linked with decreases in various measures of crime or delinquency. These findings are particularly pronounced among the more methodologically and statistically sophisticated studies that rely upon nationally representative samples. And although religion is a variable that tends to be associated with a lowered likelihood of crime, delinquency, or recidivism, it remains largely overlooked by criminologists and other social scientists interested in crime reduction.

II. Religious Interventions in Reducing Crime

Multivariate studies typically include research designs that allow researchers to control for a number of factors and thus to rule out other explanations for research findings. Although the research literature is still preliminary, faith-based programs or initiatives studied were found to be significantly more effective than their counterparts. An exception is a study that examined whether participation in religious programs and the experience of being "born again" was associated with lowered recidivism. The study found no difference between religious prisoners and nonreligious prisoners in terms of recidivism (Johnson 1987).

In a comparative evaluation of the Christian drug treatment program called Teen Challenge, Aaron Bicknese assessed the effectiveness of Teen Challenge according to several outcome measures and found that offenders who participated in the faith-based drug treatment program were more likely to remain sober and maintain employment than those who did not. Further, Teen Challenge graduates were employed full time, and fewer of them returned to treatment than those in either comparison group (Bicknese 1999).

A series of multivariate studies examining the effectiveness of Prison Fellowship (PF) programs tend to support the notion that PF participants fare significantly better. In the first study, Mark Young and his coauthors investigated long-term recidivism among a group of federal inmates trained as volunteer prison ministers and found that the PF group had a significantly lower rate of recidivism than the matched group (Young, Gartner, O'Connor, Larson, and Wright 1995). In the second study, Johnson and colleagues examined the impact of PF religious programs on institutional adjustment and recidivism rates in two matched groups of inmates from four adult male prisons in New York State. After controlling for level of involvement in PF-sponsored programs, inmates who were most active in Bible studies were significantly less likely to be rearrested during the year-long follow-up period (Johnson, Larson, and Pitts 1997). In a followup to this study, Johnson extended the New York research on former inmates by increasing the length of study from 1 to 8 years and found that frequent Bible study participants were less likely to be rearrested 2 and 3 years after their release (Johnson 2004).

In one of the more publicized studies to date, Johnson took six years to complete an evaluation of PF's expressly Christian, faith-based prerelease program known as the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI). Among the study's key findings are the following: (a) IFI program graduates were significantly less likely than the matched comparison group to be arrested and (b) IFI program graduates were significantly less likely than the matched comparison group to be reincarcerated during the two-year follow-up period (Johnson and Larson 2003).

In yet another study of PF, Kerley and associates explored the relationship between participation in Operation Starting Line (OSL), a faith-based prison event, and the subsequent experience of negative emotions and incidence of negative behaviors (Kerley, Matthews, and Schulz 2005). OSL participants were less likely to experience negative emotions and to engage in fights and arguments with other inmates or prison staff. The results from this study are consistent with previous research and were supported in a second study where Kerley surveyed prisoners in order to determine whether levels of reported religiosity were associated with reduced levels of arguing and fighting. The study concluded that religiosity directly reduces the likelihood of

arguing and indirectly reduces the likelihood of fighting (Kerley, Matthews, and Blanchard 2005).

The Iowa Department of Management conducted an evaluation of all 17 substance abuse treatment programs found in eight of Iowa's prisons, including PF's IFI. Among other things, the lengthy evaluation concluded that IFI was the first or second most effective of the 17 substance abuse interventions to reduce recidivism in the state of Iowa (Iowa Department of Management 2007).

More recently, Duwe and King (2012) evaluated the effectiveness of the IFI by examining recidivism outcomes among 732 offenders released from Minnesota prisoners between 2003 and 2009. A series of regression analyses document that participation in IFI significantly reduced the likelihood of rearrest (26 percent), reconviction (35 percent), and reincarceration (40 percent) of former prisoners.

A new study extends the research on IFI by conducting a cost-benefit analysis of the program. Because IFI relies heavily on volunteers and program costs are privately funded, the program involves no additional expense for the State of Minnesota. This study focused on estimating the program's benefits by examining recidivism and postrelease employment. The findings showed that during its first six years of operation in Minnesota, IFI produced an estimated benefit of $3 million, which amounts to nearly $8,300 per participant (Duwe and Johnson 2013).

III. How Does Religion Matter for Crime Reduction?

As we have demonstrated, there is consistent empirical evidence that religiosity is linked with the reduction of crime and delinquency.1 In short, we know that religion matters, but researchers have spent far less time considering how measures of religion, religious institutions, or religious commitment are inversely related to crime and delinquency. In this section, we examine how various religious variables are consequential for crime reduction.

A. Religion Is a Protective Factor

There is growing evidence that religion, individual religious commitment, and religious congregations have the potential to help prevent high-risk urban youths from engaging in delinquent behavior (Johnson, Jang, Larson, and Li, 2001; Johnson, Larson, Jang, and Li 2000). Johnson and colleagues (Johnson, Larson, Li, and Jang 2000) estimated a series of regression models and found that (a) the effect of neighborhood disorder (i.e., high-crime neighborhoods) on crime was partly mediated by an individual's frequency of church attendance and (b) involvement of African American youth in religious institutions significantly buffers the effects of neighborhood disorder on crime and serious crime in particular. The authors conclude that the African American church has the potential to be an important agency of local social control and that researchers should not overlook the important role that these religious congregations may play in the lives of disadvantaged youth.

Preliminary evidence suggests that youths who have continued religious involvement or participation throughout adolescence may be the beneficiaries of a cumulative religiosity effect that lessens the risk of illicit drug use (Jang and Johnson 2001). This finding suggests that youths

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